Media

PRESS

“As reimagined by Ms. Bauman, this story of exiles in love and in conflict becomes a meditation on immigrants and refugees today, with a multilingual cast that mixes amateurs with professionals.”- NY Times

Soccer is the connector, a sort of nonverbal communication in this world, and it quickly becomes clear that Bauman’s As You Like It is a soccer game in which the players happen to speak in iambic pentameter. ” – Brooklyn Rail

“As the principals flirt through mistaken identity, the ensemble lines up to fill plastic jugs with water from a spigot, bringing life-and-death stakes to what was previously a light rom-com. Who knew that As You Like It touched on the universal language of soccer, the economic exploitation of refugees, and the role of class in determining how long one will spend in the purgatory between seeking refuge and getting it? Yet that’s what you’ll walk away from Arden/Everywhere thinking about, making a strong case for the relevance of the play.” – Theater Mania

“It’s not just the characters in the camp who hope for more; it’s also the actors portraying them, which we learn when they break the fourth wall to tell their own heartbreaking stories of dislocation.” – Theater Scene

FROM THE DIRECTOR

“My time in Kakuma was a crash course in joy: how it’s not connected to the absence of hardship, how it can emerge almost instantaneously from someone who has seemed to be in the darkest place moments before. The depth and extremes of emotion, the profound, turn-on-a-dime shifts I saw in my workshop felt like how things work in Shakespeare.” – Howlround by Artistic Director Jessica Bauman

“In my world, it sometimes feels like stories in the theater are a very rarified thing, only accessible to a very select group of people, only told by a pretty select group of people. Since I’ve been home, I realize how easily I tend to write this off in my mind – that theater (and by inference, storytelling in general) is a luxury, something that people who can afford it use as diversion or distraction. Which makes the whole enterprise of making those stories feel trivial. This way of thinking undermines my belief in the value of both the project of making theater (storytelling) and my own creative energy and identity as a theater maker.” – Director Jessica Bauman’s Blog